CHAPTER XX
MEDWAY
Five days later, Medway, one morning, recognized the Colonel. "Why,my dear father, what are you doing here?... What's it all about?" Hisfeeble voice died away; without waiting for an answer, he lapsed intoa kind of semi-consciousness. Out of this, day by day, though, hecame more strongly. Directly he appeared to accept, without furthercuriosity, his father's occasional presence in the room. Anotherinterval, and he began to question the physician and nurses. "Back,eh?--and leg, and this thing on my head. I don't remember.--A kind ofcrash.... What happened?"
Evasive answers did for a while, but it was evident that they would notdo for ever. In the end it was Thomson who told him.
"You did, did you!" exclaimed the doctor in the outer room. "Well, Idon't know but what it's just as well!"
"I couldn't help it, sir. He pinned me down."
The Colonel spoke. "Just what and how much did you tell him?"
"I told him, sir, about the wreck, and how he got beaten about, and howI fastened him, when he was senseless and we were sinking, to a bitof spar, and how we were picked up with some of the crew about dawn.And about his being brought here, and being very well cared for, andyour coming from New York, you and Miss Ashendyne, and that he'd beenwonderful close to dying, but was all right now, and what the date was,and things like that, sir."
"Did he ask for his wife?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you told him?"
"Yes, sir."
The doctor rose. "Well, I'm glad it's done. I'll go see--" anddisappeared into the sick-room.
"I think you did well, Thomson," said the Colonel. "When you've got totake a thing, you'd better stand up and take it, and the quicker thebetter."
"Yes, sir," said Thomson; and adjusted the jalousies, it being now verywarm and the glare at times insupportable.
The Colonel, under the guidance of a dragoman of the best, had beenshopping, and was in white duck. Hagar, too, had secured from a Frenchshop muslin and nainsook.
Thomson had been concerned for her lack of any maid or femalecompanionship. He had gently broached the subject a week or two before."Mrs. Ashendyne had an excellent maid, Miss, who was with us on theyacht that night and was saved. But she's of a high-wrought nature,and the shock and cold and everything rather laid her up. She has abrother who is a photographer in Cairo, having married a native woman,and she's gone to stay with him awhile, before she goes back intoservice. If that hadn't been the case, Miss, you might, if you wished,have taken her on. I think she would have given satisfaction. As it is,Miss, I know some English people with a shop here, and I think throughthem I could find you some one. She would not be a superior lady's maidlike C?cile, but--"
Hagar had declined the offer. "I never had a maid, thank you, Thomson.I can do for myself very well."
She liked Thomson, and Thomson agreed with the nurse that she was aconsiderate young lady. Now, having adjusted the blinds, Thomson leftthe room.
The Colonel paced up and down, his hands behind him. The white duckwas becoming; he did not look sixty. Hair, mustache, and imperial werequite grey; except for that he had never aged to Hagar's eyes. His bodyhad the same height and swing, the same fine spareness; his voice keptthe same rich inflections, all the way from mellow and golden to themost corroding acid; he dominated, just as she remembered him in herchildhood. Not all of his two weeks in Egypt had been spent by Medway'sbedside; he had been fairly over Alexandria, and to Meks and Ramleh,and even afield to Ab?kir and Rosetta. He had offered to take her withhim upon these later excursions, but she had refused. The brother ofher father's wife was going with him, and she correctly thought thatthey would be freer without her. The Colonel acquiesced. "I dare sayyou'll have chances enough to see things, Gipsy." It was her firstintimation that any one had in mind her staying....
Now the Colonel, after pacing awhile, spoke reflectively. "At this rateit won't be long before he's really well enough to talk. I'll have tohave several talks with him. Did you gather, Gipsy, that Thomson hadtold him that he would remain crippled?"
"I do not think he told him that, grandfather."
"That's going to be the shock," said the Colonel. "Well, he'll haveto be told! I think Thomson--or the doctor--had better do it. Andthen he'll have to learn about that will. Altogether, it may delay hisconvalescence a little. Of course, I'll stay until he's practicallyrecovered--as far as he can recover."
"Do you think that ... perhaps ... he might like to go home--to go hometo Gilead Balm?"
"Not," answered the Colonel, "if I know Medway, and I think I do!To come back, crippled, after all these primrose years--to sleep inhis old room, and Maria's--to sit on the porch and listen to Bob andSerena--No!"
That night in her own room Hagar placed two candles on the table, tooka sheet of paper and a pencil, and sitting down, made a calculation.The night was warm to oppression; through the windows came theindefinite, hot, thick murmur of the evening city. Hagar sat withbare arms and throat and loosened hair. She wrote her name, _HagarAshendyne_, and her age, and then, an inch below, a little table,--
The Prize Story $200.00 (_Clothes, books, Thomasine. All spent._) The Story in ----'s Magazine $50.00 (_Clothes, books. All spent._) "The Lame Duck" $100.00 (_I have most of it yet._) "The Mortal" $125.00 ------- Total $475.00
After a pause the pencil moved on. "Many stories in mind, one partlywritten. The monthly says I can write and will make a name." It paused,then moved again. "To earn a living. To live where life is simple anddoesn't cost much. If I go on, and I will go on, I could live at GileadBalm on what I make, and help keep up the place. If ever I had to liveby myself, I could get two or three rooms in a city and live there. Ormaybe a small house, and have Thomasine with me. In another year or twoyears, I can keep myself. I do not want to stay here when grandfathergoes. Where there is no love and honour, what is the use? It isn't asthough he needed me--he doesn't--or wanted me--"
She laid the pencil down and leaned back in the deep chair. Her eyesgrew less troubled; a vague relief and calm came into her face, and shesmiled fleetingly. "If he doesn't think he needs me or wants me,--andI don't believe he'll think so,--then there isn't anything surer thanthat I won't stay." She rose and paced the room. "I shouldn't worry,Hagar!"
Some days after this, she offered one afternoon to relieve the nurse.She had done this before and frequently. Heretofore the service hadconsisted, since the patient almost always slept through the afternoon,in sitting quietly in the darkened chamber and dreaming her own dreamsfor an hour or two, when the grateful nurse came back refreshed. To-dayshe was presently aware that he was awake; that he was lying there withhis eyes open, regarding the slow play of light and shadow upon theceiling. She had found out, on those earlier occasions, that he did notdiscriminate between her and the usual nurse; when he roused himself todemand water he had looked no farther than the glass held by her handto his lips. Now, as she felt at once as with a faint electric shock,it was going to be different. He spoke presently. His voice, thoughhalting and much weakened, resembled the Colonel's golden, energeticdrawl.
"What time is it?"
"Five o'clock."
"What day of the month?"
She told him. "Alexandria in April!" he said. "What impossible thingshappen!"
She did not answer, and he fell silent, lying there staring at theceiling. In a few minutes he asked for water. The glass at his lips,she felt that he looked with curiosity first at the hand which held it,and then at her face. "Water tastes good," he said, "doesn't it?"
"Yes, it does." She put down the glass and returned to her seat.
"You aren't," he said, "the nurse I've had."
"No; she will be back presently."
There followed another pregnant silence; then: "A beautiful string ofimpossibi
lities. I know the Colonel's here--been here a long time. Now,did I dream it or did Thomson tell me that he'd brought my daughterwith him?"
"Thomson told you."
Medway lay quite quiet and relaxed. The cut over the head was nearlyhealed; there was now but a slight fillet-like white bandage about it.Thomson had trimmed mustache and short pointed beard; the featuresabove were bloodless yet, but no longer sunken and ghastly; the eyeswere gathering keenness and intelligence. Ashendynes and Coltsworthswere alike good-looking people, and Medway had taken his share.He knew it, prized it, and bestowed upon it a proper care. Hagarwondered--wondered.
He spoke again. "Life's a variorum! I shouldn't wonder ... Hagar!"
"Yes, father?"
"Suppose you come over here, nearer. I want to see how you've 'donegrowed up.'"
She moved her chair until it rested full in a slant ray of sunlight,coming through the lowered blinds, then sat within the ray, as stillalmost as if she had been sculptured there.
Five minutes passed. "Haven't you any other name than Hagar?" saidMedway. "Are they always going to call you that?"
"Grandfather calls me Gipsy--except when he doesn't like what I do."
"Does that happen often? Are you wilful?"
"I do not know," said Hagar. "I am like my mother."
When she had spoken, she repented it with a pang of fear. He was in nocondition, of course, to have waked old, disturbing thoughts.
But Medway had depth on depth of _sang-froid_. "You look like her andyou don't look like her," he murmured. "You may be like her within, butyou can't be all like her. Blessings and cursings are all mixed in thislife. You must be a little bit like me--Gipsy!"
"It is time," said Hagar, "for an egg beaten up in wine."
She gave it to him, standing, grave-eyed, beside the bed. "I do notthink you should talk. Shut your eyes and go to sleep."
"Can you read aloud?"
"Yes, but--"
"Can you sing?"
"Not to amount to anything. But I can sing to you very low until you goto sleep, if that's what you mean--"
"All right. Sing!"
She moved from the shaft of light, and began to croon rather thanto sing, softly and dreamily, bits of old songs and ballads. In tenminutes he was asleep, and in ten more the nurse returned.
The next afternoon Thomson brought her a message. "Mr. Ashendyne wouldlike you to sit with him awhile, Miss."
She went, and took her chair by the window, the nurse leaving the room.Medway lay dozing, his eyes half-closed. After a while he woke fullyand asked who was there.
"It is Hagar, father."
"Sit where you were yesterday."
She obeyed, taking again her place in the slant light. It made a goldcrown for her dusky hair, slid to the hollow of her firm young throat,brought forward her slender shoulders, draped in white, and bathed herlong hands, folded in her lap.
Medway lay and looked at her, coolly, as long as he pleased. "You arenot at all what is called beautiful. We'll dismiss that from mind.But the people who give us our terms are mostly idiots anyhow! Beautyin the eye of the beholder--but what bats are the beholders! No, youhaven't beauty, as they say, but there's something left.... I like theway you sit there, Gipsy."
"I am glad that you are pleased, father."
"I couldn't deduce you from your letters."
Her eyes met his. "I did not choose that you should."
Again she felt a quiver of pain for what she had said. She was tornbetween a veritable anger which now and again rose perilously near thesurface and a profound pity for his broken body, and for what he wouldfeel when he knew. Her dream of the early winter haunted her. She sawhim leaving that white steamer, coming lightly and jauntily down fromit to the shore, robust, with a colour in his cheeks and his white hatlike a helmet. She heard again Roger Michael speaking. "We met him atCarcassonne, and afterwards at Aigues-Mortes. He was sketching mostwonderfully." She saw him, moving lightly, from stone to stone in oldhalf-ruined cities. The dandelion day and the blossoming orchard cameback to her; she felt again beneath her his half-dancing motion as hecarried her under the boughs where the bees were humming. Her pity, hercomprehension, put the anger down.
Medway was watching her curiously. "You have a most expressive face,"he said. "I do not remember you well as a child. How old were you thelast time we met?"
"Five or six, I think. The clearest thing I can remember, father, isone day when you were lying under the cedars and I had been gatheringdandelions and came to look at a book you had. You played with me, andI accidentally burned my finger on your cigar. Then you were very kindand lovely; you took me to grandmother to have it tied up, and then youcarried me on your shoulder through the orchard, and told me 'Jack andthe Beanstalk.'"
"By Jove!" said Medway. "Why, I remember that, too!... First the smellof the cedar and then the apple blossoms.... You were a queer littleelf--and you entered into the morals of 'Jack and the Beanstalk' mostseriously.... Good lack! Whoever forgets anything! That to come back assoft and vivid!... Well, I thought I had forgotten you clean, Gipsy,but it seems I hadn't."
"You mustn't talk too much. Shall I sing you to sleep?"
"Yes, sing!"
Just before he dozed off, he spoke again, drowsily. "Have you heardthem say how many days it will be before I am on my feet again?"
"No."
"I will want to show you and the Colonel--" But she had begun to croon"Swanee River," and he went to sleep with his sentence unfinished.
The next day he spoke of his drowned wife. It came as a casual remark,but with propriety. "Anna was a good woman. There could hardly havebeen a more amiable one. She had experience and tact; she was utterlyunexacting. She had her interests and I had mine; we lived and letlive.... I cannot yet understand how she happened to have been theone--"
"She sent me her picture," said Hagar. "I thought it very handsome, anda good face, too. And the two or three letters I had from her--I havekept them."
"She was a good woman," repeated Medway. "You rarely see a tolerantwoman--she was one. Her brother has told me about her will. It istrue that I expected, perhaps, a fuller confidence. But it was hermoney--she had a right to do as she pleased. I knew that she had someunfortunate idea or other as to the origin of her wealth--but I didnot conceive that her mind made so much of it.... However, I refuseto be troubled on that score. Her disposition of matters leaves mecomfortable enough. I am not worrying over it. I never worry, Gipsy!"
After lying for three minutes he spoke with his inimitable liquiddrawl. "When I think of all the years out of which I have squeezedenjoyment on the pettiest income--going here and going there--everynook of Europe, much of Asia and Africa--just managing to keep Thomsonand myself--knowing every in and out, every rank and grade and caste,palace and hovel, ch?teau and garret, camp and atelier, knowingpictures, music, scenery, strange people and strange adventures,knowing my own kind and welcome among them--now basking like a lizard,now in action as though a tarantula had bit me--everywhere, desert andsea and city--and all on next to nothing!--making drawings when I hadto (I did that one year in southern France; Carcassonne, Aigues-Mortes,N?mes, and so forth), but usually fortunate in friends ... it seemsthat I might be able to manage on fifty thousand a year ... resume atthe old house."
It was another week before he was told. He was growing impatient andsuspicious.... The doctor did it, Thomson flunking for the first timein his existence. The doctor, having done it, came out of the room,drew a long breath, and accepted coffee from Mahomet with rather ashaking hand.
"Well?" demanded the Colonel. "Well?"
"He's perfectly game," said the doctor, "but I should say he's hardhit. However,"--he drank the coffee,--"there's one thing that aconsiderable experience with human nature has taught me, and that is,Colonel, that your born hedonist--and it's no disparagement to Mr.Ashendyne to call him that; quite the reverse--your born hedonist willremain hedonist still, though the heavens fall. He'll twist back to thepleasant. He's going through pr
etty bitter waters at the moment, buthe'll get life somehow on the pleasurable plane again. All the same,"mused the doctor, "he's undoubtedly suffering at present."
"I won't go in," said the Colonel. "Better fight such things out alone!"
The other nodded. "Yes, I suppose so."
But a little later Hagar went in. She waited an hour or two in herown room, sitting before a window, gazing with unseeing eyes. Theheat swam and dazzled above countless flat, pale, parapetted roofs ofcountless houses. Palm and pepper and acacia and eucalyptus drooped inthe airless day; there sounded a drone of voices; a great bird sailedslowly on stretched wings far overhead in a sky like brass. She turnedand went to her father's room.
Outside she met Thomson. "Are you going in, Miss? I'm glad of that. Mr.Ashendyne isn't one of these people whom their own company suffices--"
Hagar raised sombre eyes. "I thought that my father had always beensufficient to himself--"
"Not in trouble, Miss."
He knocked at the door for her. Medway's voice answered, strangelyjerky, quick, and harsh. "What is it? Come in!"
Thomson opened the door. "It's Miss Hagar, sir," then closed it uponher and glided away down the corridor.
Medway was lying well up upon his pillows, staring at the light uponthe wall. He had sent away the nurse. He did not speak, and Hagar,moving quietly, went here and there in the large room, that was aslarge as an audience chamber. At the windows she drew the jalousiesyet closer, making a rich twilight in the room. There were flowerson a table, and she brought fresh water and filled the bowl in whichthey lived. There were books in a small case, and, kneeling before it,she read over their titles, and taking one from the shelf went softlythrough it, looking at the pictures.
At last, with it still in her hand, she came to her accustomed seatnear the bed. "It's a bad day for you," she said simply. "I am verysorry."
"Do you object to my swearing?"
"Not especially, if it helps you."
"It won't--I'll put it off.... Oh--h...." He turned his head andshoulders as best he could, until his face was buried in the pillows.The bed shook with his heavy, gasping sobs....
It did not last. Ashendynes were not apt long to indulge in that kindof thing. Medway pulled a good oar out of it. The room very soonbecame perfectly still again. When the silence was broken, he askedher what she was reading, and then if she had seen anything of thecity. Presently he told her to sing. He thought he might sleep; hehadn't slept much last night. "I must have had a presentiment of thisdamned thing--Go on and sing!" She crooned "Dixie" and "Swanee River"and "Annie Laurie," but it was of no use. He could not sleep. "Of allthings to come to me, this--!... Why, I should like to be out in thedesert this minute, with a caravan.... O God!"
She brought him cool water. "I'm sorry--I'm sorry!" she said.
As she put down the glass, he held her by the sleeve. A twisted smile,half-wretched, half with a glint of cheer, crossed his face. "Do youknow, Gipsy, I could grow right fond of you."